[Sca-cooks] Introductions.. And Meat Pies

[Huette von Ahrens]

Actually, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, compost as the garden supplement came
first, with compost as the cooking term coming about two hundred years later.

Huette

Compost, n.

    2. Cookery. = COMPOTE. Obs.    a. A stew of various ingredients. 
 
  c1420 Liber Cocorum (1862) 18 For to make a compost [with chickens, herbs, spices, etc.].
 


    b. spec. A preparation of fruit or spice preserved in wine, sugar, vinegar, or the like. 
 
  c1430 Two Cookery-bks. (1888) 59 Le ij cours, Compost, Brode canelle, Potage. c1450 Ibid. 87
Peris in compost, take pere Wardones..pare hem, and seth hem..and cast hem to the Syryppe..And
then pare clene rasinges of ginger..and caste hem to the peres in composte. 1513 Bk. Keruynge in
Babees Bk. (1868) 268 Loke your composte be fayre and clene. 1601 HOLLAND Pliny II. 159 White
oliues..before they be put vp in their compost or pickle.
 


    3. A mixture of various ingredients for fertilizing or enriching land, a prepared manure or
mould.
  Also composs, COMPASS n.2. 
 
  [1258 Charter St. Albans Abbey in M. Paris (Rolls) V. 668 Cum composto..ad prædictum manerium
meliorandum.] 1587 HARRISON England III. viii. (1878) II. 54 That ground will serve well, and
without compest for barleie. 1589 PUTTENHAM Eng. Poesie III. xxv. (Arb.) 309 The good gardiner
seasons his soyle by sundrie sorts of compost: as mucke or marle, clay or sande..bloud, or lees of
oyle or wine. 1602 SHAKES. Ham. III. iv. 151 Do not spred the Compost o[e]r the Weedes, To make
them ranke. 1626 BACON Sylva §597. 1693 EVELYN De la Quint. Compl. Gard. Gloss., Compost, is rich
made Mold, compounded with choice Mold, rotten Dung, and other enriching ingredients. 1784 COWPER
Task III. 637 Turn the clod, and wheel the compost home. 1813 BINGLEY Anim. Biog. (ed. 4) III. 70
The neighbouring farmers made them [herrings] up into composts, and manured their ground with
them. 1861 DELAMER Fl. Gard. 30 The soil for hyacinths is a compost..consisting of light loam,
leaf-mould, river-sand, and well-rotted dung.
 



--- Daniel Myers <eduard at medievalcookery.com> wrote:

> 
> On Jun 15, 2005, at 9:54 AM, Vladimir Armbruster wrote:
> 
> > *raises an eyebrow*
> > Canning.
> > Compost.
> >
> > Doc, I'm a little afraid.  What is compost?
> 
> As others have said, pickled rood vegetables.  The recipe I use is  
> online at:
> http://www.medievalcookery.com/recipes/compost.html
> 
> I believe that somewhere along the line, the meaning of the word  
> compost shifted to its current gardening-related sense, and an  
> offshoot (compote) took over its food related niche.
> 
> 
> - Doc
> 
> 
> -- 
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
>   Edouard Halidai  (Daniel Myers)
>   Pasciunt, mugiunt, confidiunt.
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> 
> 
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